Judith Cummins
Main Page: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)Department Debates - View all Judith Cummins's debates with the Cabinet Office
(2 days, 4 hours ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
I would like to make a statement on the Government’s response to module 1 of the covid inquiry. In July last year, Baroness Hallett published her report from the first module of the inquiry. It concluded that the UK was not as prepared as it should have been for the pandemic and that more could and should have been done. In my statement to the House immediately following the publication of her report, I committed to responding in full within six months.
Before I turn to the Government’s response, I want to place on record once again my thanks to Baroness Hallett and her team for the work they have done so far in the inquiry. I also pay tribute to the families and friends who lost loved ones during the pandemic, some of whom are with us in the Gallery. Earlier this week I visited the national covid memorial wall just across the river from here. I am grateful to the friends of the wall who have so lovingly cared for it and maintained it over the past few years.
As I said in my statement in July, the Government’s first responsibility is to keep the public safe. That is why since we were elected, we have taken steps to strengthen the UK’s resilience. I announced a review of national resilience. Work on that review is proceeding, and I will update the House on its conclusion in the spring.
The Prime Minister has established a single Cabinet Committee for resilience, which I chair, which meets to ensure clear and rigorous ministerial oversight. We have adopted the 2023 biological security strategy to protect the UK and our interests from significant biological risks.
In April, the new UK Resilience Academy will be launched. It will train over 4,000 people in resilience and emergency roles every year and help them plan for and manage a range of crises, including pandemics. I should also acknowledge, as I did in my first statement back in July, that in some areas these improvements build on work carried out by the previous Administration.
The improvements that we have made to our resilience have been put to the test over the last six months. Those include the Prime Minister chairing a number of emergency Cobra meetings to address the violent disorder that occurred over the summer and working across our four nations to anticipate and contain clade 1 mpox cases in the UK.
Since July, we have also sent two emergency alerts to provide advice to the public in life-threatening situations. During Storm Darragh, because of a very rare red—danger to life—warning, an alert was sent to over three million people in affected regions. More recently, we issued a very localised warning over flooding danger. The Government will carry out a full national test of the emergency alert system later this year. That will ensure that the system is functioning correctly, should it need to be deployed in an emergency.
The covid module 1 inquiry found that years of under-investment meant that pandemic planning was not a sufficient priority, that our health services were already suffering and beyond capacity, and that there were high levels of illness and health inequalities. All of that meant that the state was ill-prepared to manage a crisis on this scale. Therefore, apart from the specific recommendations, delivering on the Government’s missions—particularly in this context, building a national health service fit for the future—will contribute in important ways to the UK’s resilience.
Pandemic planning and resilience are about not just specific resilience measures but ensuring the underlying fundamentals of our country are strong. I thank the devolved Governments for their co-operation in preparing our response today. We will continue to work together for the safety of the communities we serve.
I turn to specifics. There are three new commitments that I wish to highlight. First, the inquiry recommended that the UK Government and devolved Governments should together hold a regular UK-wide pandemic response exercise. We agree and will be undertaking a full national pandemic response exercise later this year. It will be the first of its kind in nearly a decade. It will test the UK’s capabilities, plans, protocols and procedures in the event of another major pandemic. It will be led by senior Ministers, involve thousands of participants and run across all regions and nations of the UK. Alongside the Health Secretary, I have written to all Cabinet Ministers to ask for their commitment to full participation. The exercise will take place in the autumn over a number of days. The Government will communicate the findings and lessons of the exercise as recommended by the covid-19 inquiry.
Secondly, the inquiry found that the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups and continues to affect many people in those communities. A new national vulnerability map created by the Cabinet Office with the Office for National Statistics will geographically map population numbers of those who may be vulnerable in a crisis. It will do that by sharing data including age, disability, ethnicity, and whether someone is receiving care. The map will improve the Government’s understanding of the scale and location of disproportionately impacted populations ahead of and during crises and enable targeted local support when required.
Thirdly, as the inquiry reminds us, the risks we face are changing more quickly than ever before, and we live in an increasingly volatile world. It therefore recommended a better approach to risk assessment across the board, which we accept. Today, I am publishing an updated national risk register: the public-facing version of the national security risk assessment, which provides businesses and the voluntary and community sectors with the latest information about the risks they face to support their planning, preparation and response. We will ensure that it continues to be updated regularly. A significant proportion of the risks will be subject to reassessment over the next few months, and we will publish a further updated risk register as needed once the process is complete.
I want to mention two further recommendations where the Government accept the underlying objectives and propose to take them forward in specific ways. First, the inquiry recommended Cabinet Office leadership for whole-system civil emergencies in the UK. We agree with that, as for whole-system emergencies such as a pandemic, the centre of Government needs to play a lead role. But for lower-scale emergencies, we believe that the lead Department model still has value. It remains important for Departments with the day-to-day responsibility for an issue to lead the work to identify serious risks and ensure that the right planning, response and recovery arrangements are in place. Therefore, in some circumstances we will retain the lead Government Department model, because, in those cases, responsibility and oversight should sit with the body with the best understanding, relationships and mechanisms for delivery to identify and address risks. There will be an enhanced role for the Cabinet Office to improve preparedness and resilience for larger-scale catastrophic risks.
Secondly, on the question of independent input into whole-system civil emergency preparedness and resilience, we agree with the need for independent strategic advice and challenge, including the use of so-called red teams. We are establishing eight expert advisory groups to combat group-think in our understanding of risks. Alongside that, through the crisis management excellence programme we will increase training in red teaming. We want to work with the local resilience forums that exist around the country who provide critical knowledge and expertise.
The Government are also committed to introducing a duty of candour on public authorities as a catalyst for a changed culture in the public sector to improve transparency and accountability. We also welcome and will draw on the expertise of multidisciplinary pandemic science institutes that provide world-leading academic and scientific expertise such as the excellent Pandemic Institute in Liverpool, which I was pleased to visit yesterday. In the end, the Government must remain responsible and accountable for the policy and resource allocation decisions they take, but we believe that the external input of those bodies can add value to that decision making.
The impact of the covid-19 pandemic was unprecedented in modern memory. It caused the loss of far too many lives. My thoughts, and the thoughts of the whole Government, continue to be with all those who lost loved ones during the pandemic. Many of them feel not just grief but anger that, as Baroness Hallett’s report sadly confirmed, the country was not as prepared as it should have been.
My Department will monitor the implementation of the commitments made in response to the covid-19 inquiry. In all this, we must remember that the next crisis may not be the same as the last. There is a need for flexibility in our planning and learning, and we will build that into what we do. The Government also remain committed to engaging fully with the inquiry, and await Baroness Hallett’s findings and recommendations in subsequent module reports as she continues her important work. I commend this statement to the House.
Pat McFadden
That will all be tested in the exercise we have planned. Past planning exercises have sometimes planned for the wrong thing—that is the danger. That is why I say all the time that we have to make sure that we learn from what happened throughout the pandemic of a few years ago, but not make the assumption that the next pandemic or the next crisis will be exactly the same. That is what we have to do.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
The findings of the inquiry are a harsh confirmation of what we already knew. They are that the UK was woefully unprepared for the pandemic: the focus was wrong, the leadership was lacking and the lessons from past crises were not learned. I am sure I speak for all hon. Members when I say that our hearts remain with those who lost loved ones during that tragic time, and I thank the family members who are in the Public Gallery today.
To do right by them, crucially, we must ensure that this is a turning point. It is essential that the new Government take swift and decisive action to prepare for next time. I therefore welcome the Minister’s announcement of a pandemic response exercise this autumn; however, will that be a one-off or are further exercises planned and, if they are, how frequently?
As well as the different, more proactive approach to disease outbreak preparedness that Baroness Hallett cites in her report, we must invest in public health, rather than simply throwing money at crises when they materialise. One of the key findings is that health inequalities and a less healthy population has left the nation less resilient. Does the Minister agree that public health should be a priority and that the public health grant, with a proportion set aside for those experiencing the worst health inequalities to co-produce plans for their communities, would be a step in the right direction?
We need to help more people live more years of their life in good health. When I think back to those covid years, I think of the appalling loneliness and isolation of those in hospital or in care homes. Do the Government agree that patients and care home residents should be given a new legal right to maintain family contact in all health and care settings?
Finally, on resilience forums, will the Minister confirm what funding plans there are in future for resilience forums? I was aware before Christmas that there was some lack of certainty about that—certainly, that is what I was hearing from my own Sussex resilience forum. We cannot risk our country not being ready for the future, and those are important questions.